How the Pro-Abortion Movement Uses Words to Deceive

We have always known that pro-abortion rhetoric is built on misleading slogans and deceptive terms. But I was reminded today of just how deceptive much of the terminology is when I read a 2016 interview with actor Kelsey Grammer.

Before getting to Grammer’s comments, the first and foremost example of abortion deception is the “pro-choice” moniker, since the pro-abortionists are anything but pro-choice.

Of course, they want to be able choose to abort their babies. But they certainly don’t want pregnant women to be exposed to the other choices they have, including giving their babies up for adoption or choosing to keep their children. When you walk into an abortion mill, choice is a one-way street.

Then there are the sterilized terms for the brutal work of abortion, like POC, standing for “products of conception.” This is the term used for aborted baby parts, including eyes and hands and feet. They can be found carefully stored in bottles and other containers before being disposed of by the abortion providers. (For a gut-wrenching description, go here.)

Unfortunately, the power of a catchy slogan or a medical term is that it often takes the place of critical thinking. It’s much easier to repeat a sound bite than to think through an issue, and when it comes to an emotionally-charged issue like abortion, sound bites rule the day.

As for Grammer’s interview, somehow I missed it when it came out last year, but he took issue with the term “reproductive rights.”

As noted on LifeSiteNews, “Emmy-award winning actor Kelsey Grammer slammed the euphemism ‘reproductive rights’ as ‘dishonest’ and lamented the practice of killing pre-born children because they were conceived in rape in an interview with the UK publication The Times.

As he said, “It gets a bit dishonest to call something reproductive rights when you clearly have a choice well before a baby is conceived.”

Exactly. If the woman doesn’t want to reproduce, she doesn’t have to have unprotected sex.

But that’s only the beginning of the deception.

What could be more dishonest and misleading than the term “reproductive rights” when it comes to pro-abortion activism?

First, having an abortion has nothing to do with either reproduction or rights. Any woman can have as many babies as she wants to have (or, is able to have). No one in the pro-life movement is stopping her. To the contrary, to the extent that deciding to have children is a right, all pro-lifers encourage that right. Go ahead and reproduce!

Second, pro-abortionists could not have picked a more deceptive term than “reproductive rights” since we are talking about ending a pregnancy rather than producing a baby. It would be more accurate to call this “fetus-killing rights” or “terminating pregnancy rights” rather than “reproductive rights.”

Perhaps these are not so catchy? Perhaps telling the truth about abortion would destroy the industry rather than support it?

But truth doesn’t stop headlines from blaring nonsense like this, from March 20, 2017 on The Hill: “Defunding Planned Parenthood is a violation of women's reproductive rights.”

And how, exactly, is that? Which “reproductive right” will be violated if the government doesn’t help Planned Parenthood perform more abortions?

The bad news is that millions of people continue to believe lies. The good news is that people like Grammer, who used to be “pro-choice,” have been converted.

Let’s keep exposing the lies. The more lies exposed, the more lives saved.